"I'm not writing."

[elfs]

Every time I say, "I'm not writing right now," I go on a writing tear. I'm a little stuck in terms of posting, but I think I'm working through that. Charlie Stross and Cory Doctorow posted a nifty little story recently entitled Appeals Court, and I realized that there was if not a market at least a niche: "near post-Singularity" stories. Since Charlie wrote his, I figured I should get cracking on mine: an insurance agent whose pulls the short straw at his company and is assigned to take the crappiest job they have: go to Redmond and reboot the entire polis there for the most ungrateful (Brad: "Ungrateful‽" Audience: "Superman!") population on the planet. One unit of Diaspora, one unit of Chairman Bill Leads The Happy Workers In Song, and one desperate but pale attempt to channel Scottish SF 2/3rds of the way 'round the planet.



"King?" Chris's brain goes numb. Oh, shit, data corruption, and industrial waste, that means Redmond. One of the great hell-holes of the Singularity. People compare what AOL did to its customers on the day of the Singularity to the Gates of Hell opening up and a demon horde swallowing those poor people's heads. What they don't understand is that what happened in King County that day should frighten them even more: people lined up to drink that kool-aid. They're still in there.

He's heard it's very colorful, for a monoculture.

"What are you worried about?" Bonnie says cheerfully. "You get to stay in the sous-sol jusqu'ici. I'm the one risking her immortal soul."

Padmanabhan nods. "They pay us good money for this job, Chris. They have for a decade. They're our best premium service customer."

"That's because they need it," Chris said. "Nobody else needs our services as much as they do. They're like the fuckin' Baptists in Heaven: they want to think they're the only ones up here. Remember North Korea? 'The rest of the world has it worse than we do!' That's Redmond. Okay, fine. Do we raise premium for these guys?"

"That depends on the crisis Bonnie finds. You must just get her there."

Chris picks up the PDA and signs his name on the line that reads, "Wind River Insurance and Reboot Services." He hands it to the robot clerk, who spins it into a slot, neatly slicing through both Bonnie and Padmanabhan's holograms in the process. "Let's go."

"You know what's really funny, Chris?" Bonnie says as the two of the walk down to the helipad where an Osprey and Bonnie's portable awaits Chris. "The OS the Redmond Polis runs was named Singularity."

"I thought those people didn't have a sense of humor."

"They don't."

Comments

[lucky-otter.livejournal.com]

"Oh wait, it's just Brad without his glasses."

The whole idea of post-Singularity fiction is whacky. By definition, we shouldn't be able to predict it, and what else is speculative fiction but an attempt to predict? Sure, there are a hundred different conflicting predictions, but that doesn't make them stop being predictions, it just means that most (or all) of them are wrong.

But, that doesn't stop me from enjoying reading them.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

The Diaspora class of post-Singularity fiction assumes that the toposphere opened up vertically (with Egan putting an artificial ceiling on it for reasons that look weaker and weaker the more we explore the genre), but interactions between near-toposophic levels would be commonplace, and there would be a lot of weirdness from the point of view of left-behind statics and ecstatics like ourselves.

I just wanted to comment on the odd NorKorea-like mentality that exists at a lot of Microsoft, the crunchy chill of Seattle natives, and the idea that someday Pike Place market will be consumed by blackberry vines.

[ibsulon.livejournal.com]

And heck, perhaps I'm sick, but I want to hear more of what AOL did. :)

(Former AOL Tech support.. but I'm better now.)

[lisakit.livejournal.com]

:looks at friends page that is at least 1/5 Elf posts

You're not posting? Huh?

[elfs.livejournal.com]

What I meant by that is I'm not writing either fiction or code for myself. I've been too busy with work and other crud to write for myself. Of course, whenever I say that I start having breakthroughs and writing like a demon.